


fire and ice

by aes3plex



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:28:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21907495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aes3plex/pseuds/aes3plex
Summary: It begins with the fever, with death still an open door and James still at the threshold. With James saying “I’m cold.”
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 13
Kudos: 83
Collections: 12 Days of Carnivale ~ 2018





	fire and ice

**Author's Note:**

> This was written & posted on Tumblr for 12 Days of Carnivale 2018.

It begins with the fever, with death still an open door and James still at the threshold. With James saying “I’m cold.”

Tom Jopson on the other side of the bed, exhausted in his patched shirtsleeves, looking for the first time at a loss. The fire here is stoked, the blankets thick; Resolution has no copper warming pans for them, and though the postmaster’s wife has brought them stones before—great river stones, heated in the fire and wrapped in cloth—she is absent now, and such things are beyond them.

“I’m cold,” James says, through his cracked lips and his missing teeth, “I’m cold, I’m cold,” and not an hour ago Francis and Jopson conspired between the two of them to change his linen for flannel, his eyes fixed on the wall stretching away and his terrible wounds half-closed. He is lucid, at least, mostly, if not always coherent; there are others less lucky. “Awful to mention it,” James says, with a shadow of affectation, lips skewing a grin.

“Captain,” says Jopson, sadly—has not yet taken to calling them their Christian names, though he has been told a thousand times—

“No,” Francis says, and begins to undress. “Thank you, Thomas,” he says, as he hangs his coat over a chair. “You’ve done all you can.” His trousers follow; he wears no waistcoat and no tie. “Why don’t you look in on Edward—see whether he wants for anything?”

“Sir,” Jopson says, half-asking, as Francis slips under the blankets and presses up against James’s lean hot back. James flinches; settles. Hums a little.

“There now,” Francis says, “Hush.” After a moment’s deliberation he brings his hand up to gently chafe James’s arm, well away from the wound; James makes no noise of protest. “Better?” Francis asks. James exhales.

“Yes,” he says.

“Sir,” says Jopson, “Captain—“ he sounds as though he’s going to cry.

“Very well, lieutenant,” says Francis, suppressing the urge to laugh. _If Ross could see me now,_ he thinks.

The night is hardly a solace: James shivers and chokes and hisses and moans, and by the time he has settled into an uneasy sleep Francis is soaked through with his sweat. It could be worse, he thinks grimly, remembering his harrowing on _Terror_ ; still it is a pleasure to extract himself, when the opportunity arises, for all that he feels the absence of James’s body like something cut from him.

In the morning he means to go down to the bathhouse behind the boatshed, for a wash and a change of worn company linen—there are crisp white shirts in the trader’s stores, and perhaps he’ll ask one for James when he wakes, but these days there isn’t a seaman among them who would take dress blues over sealskin and flannel, or waxed canvas over the heavy blanket coats the old Northwesters wear—but he thinks of James waking alone in the dark, and he stays. Washes as best he can in the basin; finds a thin folded shirt on a shelf. Lies back down on top of the covers for a moment’s rest. Feels James curls towards him like a compass pointing north.

=

(Nights go down into nights. They sleep together now more often than not: no one has anything to say of it except Tom Blanky, who chews his pipe and eyes Francis at an angle and says “aye,” whatever that means.)

=

He can see the snow coming thicker, now, drifting at the little mullioned window: a particular silence to it, always, always inexpressible. He watches it in a silence of his own.

James is hard against him again.

In that narrow bed below the eaves his prick is pressed to Francis’s back, just above the cleft of his arse; he is still asleep, Francis knows, but he rolls his hips now and then experimentally, and breathes long and slow.

Always on such nights Francis wonders who he is dreaming of. Some safe and distant love, he hopes—some Portsmouth lieutenant whom Francis will someday shake the hand of politely at a dinner. A woman, perhaps. Such things are possible.

And if there is an ache to it, to James’s heat and pressure held against him without intent, without wanting—it is Francis’s own fault, really, for letting the borders of things slip. Had he not been remiss in his demarcations he could roll away now and laugh about it later. But instead, instead, he has tripped from friendship into some other country—he has failed to mark the coastline on the chart, and now he will lie here under company blankets and take what he is given in the soft movements of James’s hips against his own, though they are not for him.

For even were James aware, even agreeable—had he the inclination, which Francis suspects he does; were he willing to risk fixing his interests on a single man, and a brother-officer at that—would Francis be his choice? Francis, who has not wealth nor youth nor glory. Francis, who shaves blind to save himself his own miserable glance in the mirror. And never a first choice, for a lover: never that. It is implausible, even at a stretch.

But still James is stiff against his back.

“Francis,” he says, quiet.

His breathing hasn’t changed: is he asleep even now, or has he been awake a while? And even in this instant Francis might feign sleep himself, and let all of it slip into shadow:

“Hm,” Francis says, without much effort. Behind him James pulls fractionally away—pauses—closes the space again, hips moving neatly into place. Thigh against thigh, warm, and the knot of James’s knee against the back of Francis’s own. One of James’s feet slides forward to touch Francis’s ankle. James takes a rattling breath.

“Yes,” Francis says, meaning only to answer to his name, but James’s rib cage expands against his back in an almost silent sigh, and he thinks: oh. Reaches behind on an impulse and finds James’s hand; brings it to his own sternum, fingers wrapped round fingers. James tightens his grip: squeezes, just once. Francis can feel breath at the nape of his neck. Soft press of James’s nose there, unexpectedly, then his mouth. The barest kiss. Something in Francis performs an odd, pathetic little flip.

“I’m asleep,” James says, a smile in his voice.

“If you like,” Francis says. It will all be right, he thinks; misery is somewhere miles away, howling through the barrens. (He can see it closing like a gap between bergs, the way out of all the suffering this will cause them.)

“No,” says James after a moment. That firmness of tone he developed after the camp. “No, I’m here.”

“Yes,” Francis says.

=

Years later:

“For God’s _sake_ , Francis,” James says, from somewhere under the blankets. “Come to bed.”

Ten feet from wardrobe to bed and still an expanse: though the fire roars and the curtains are drawn still the air is bitter against his skin. There is a pleasure in it, he thinks, in cold with warmth in sight. Perhaps he is mad for thinking it.

When he slides under the sheet it is into a jumble of elbows and knees which resolve themselves only after a moment into James Fitzjames: hair mussed, fingers freezing, he unfolds and refolds himself around Francis like an anemone seizing its prey.

“I’m here,” Francis says, amused, into the side of James’s neck. “Now what?”

“Warm me _up_ ,” says James.


End file.
